The school chose the name “Sakuranbo” (“Cherry”) based on the local cherry industry, but did not bother to run the most basic of Internet searches to see what else is using the name.

Had they done so, they would have discovered that their choice of “Sakuranbo Shougakkou” is already the name of an eroge brand centred on providing adult games of interest to lolicon erogamers.

The unfortunate choice was widely reported when it became apparent, and soon parents began to call for a new name.

The local mayor is having none of it, and in a recent press conference for concerned parents vowed to go ahead with with the lolicon-friendly naming:

“If we were to change the name, on the contrary we would just be justifying the adult world.”

Just what kind of logic lead him to this conclusion is unclear.

The school is set to open in 2011.

Lesser cases of unfortunate naming have lead to changes – in 2007 Hyogo prefecture’s “Eichi Daigaku” (“Wisdom University”) changed its name to “Saint Thomas University” after it was pointed out that “eichi” sounds very similar to “ecchi,” and that the name is also used by an adult publisher.

The people doing much of the damage to modern society, or rather the enablers, are the "Reactionaries". People who care nothing about anything, till it affects them or the media drums up an "OUTRAGE!!!" then they want to spend any amount of money and force to crush it dead.

And they do their damage not just so much for supporting unjust and ridiculous laws, but that "Moralist Panderers" use them for campaign work, peanuts (compared to giant corporation) $ funding and the few votes they legitimately receive. In the USA they've won tremendous ground with those people, relying in part on an apathetic public to not vote as much so blocks of these "Reactionary Moralist" minorities can be counted on to tip the scales in tight elections, as long as the drums of "Panic!" are beaten.

And they vote for "Good Christian" or whatever candidates that even a superficial check reveals connections to secret societies and a personal life that makes the average pornographer look moral.

That principal wants everyone to understand that a name is what you make of it. He wants you to believe that he'll run the school so well, that you'll all forget about that other sakuranbo and think only of his school.

It's precisely how some of the comments here are creepy and pedophiliac in nature that these moral issues come out in the first place. If you morons stop letting your kiddyfucker sides go out whenever news articles like this are posted anywhere in the web, then there wouldn't be as many stupid issues like this.

I think there might be a translation error? The mayor's statement would seem perfectly logical to me if he had said "acknowledge" instead of "justify", as he would be making an argument akin to those against affirmative action; AA being an acknowledgement that "race" is true rather than being anti-racism.

It would sound better but still stupid. It's not like you can name your school Holocaust Academy because otherwise you'd be justifying the holocaust... (I'm sorry for using the nazi card, but it's the perfect example of people getting upset when you use names related to them)

The only purpose words exist is so that we can identify specific subjects, items, people etc. They don't mean anything, they don't symbolize anything, they don't do anything at all! They just exist as a means of identification. NOTHING else!!!

Understand what?
I just did Google image search for "さくらんぼ小" and found
stationary, lot's of cherries (both real, candy, jewellery, and others) and a few unrelated pictures, but nothing related to the eroge in the first few pages.

“If we were to change the name, on the contrary we would just be justifying the adult world.” => The guy's got a point. morality fags really are the world's pain in the ass.Even the most innocent names are given a perverted meaning in their books just because the name is similar to an eroge maker's one.Can any government out there just put a sock up theirs to shut them up?

At the moment I suddenly thought that what if Hugh Hefner or someone similar to him in Japan is the principal of the elementary school in question? That should make sense in how the school's name came to be.

Indeed, the name fits the area and its actually a fairly cute name for a school, but there are always people who when given a new name for something immediately google it and look for the indecent or crude references just to complain about something, those people need to GTFO really :(